[TN-Bird] Reelfoot Lake Gull update (and photos) 2/21/05

2/21/05
Reelfoot Lake area
Van Works Rd/Proctor City Rd area; northeast of Tiptonville off of Hwy 78

Don Manning and I made the trip back to Reelfoot today, as Don needed 
Iceland for a TN bird, and I couldn't pass on another day with possibly the 
best overall congregation of gulls ever seen in TN (even without a 
mega-rarity like Jeff's Ivory of a few years back!)

We arrived just after the fowl weather broke, and I had expected, gulls were 
in every wet field in sight. We got to the Van Works Rd area a little after 
09:00, and very few gulls were in the area, with none of the "goodies" 
present. We then went over to Proctor City Rd, to check it out, no gulls 
present at all here. We did have some nice Lapland Longspurs at this 
location, and one male sat still for a decent photo, (my 1st with Laps). 
Gulls were soon streaming overhead from the area of the Prison, and we 
immediately had a dark Thayer's overhead with a small group of Herrings. 
These birds headed out of sight towards the Mississippi River though. Most 
of the birds were dropping in over on Van Works Rd.

A quick run back over there, quickly produced both an Iceland and Thayer's. 
This was the pattern of the day, a few trips back and forth between these 
two locations. Birds were moving all day, with apparently the same birds 
trading out between these locations, and probably the Prison. There was 
never over a couple of minutes that went by on Van Works Rd that a Western 
Meadowlark wasn't singing from the field to the north of the road.

I looked all day for the California Gull from this weekend, and never saw 
the bird. We had the dark Lesser Black-backed at Van Works early in the day, 
but didn't see it later. On the way home we had a more typical plumage 
1st-winter Lesser Black-back just east of Long Point in Fulton Co KY, 
feeding in a field with Ring-bills.

Gull totals (I believe, hard to be sure with the amount of trading around 
going on, but these are minimums) came up to 2 1st-winter Icelands (one more 
coarsely marked than the other), 3 Thayer's (2 dark 1st-winter birds, and 
one very pale 1st-winter) and 2 1st-winter Lesser Black-backs. It was nice 
when all the gulls were concentrated in these isolated wet locations over 
the weekend, they are spread out all over now. I never had over half the 
birds at Van Works Rd that Jeff and I had on Saturday, the birds are still 
around, just spread out. We left a little before dark, but by 16:45 birds 
had started to thin out, and the flock the KY Lesser Black-back was with all 
picked up at 17:00 on the dot.

I would definitely concentrate my efforts in the Van Works and Proctor City 
Rd locations. It may take some patience, but these birds seem to be reliable 
here (not sure what happened last Monday when I came up though).

Other bird of interest included American Tree Sparrows at Black Bayou, 
across from the observation platform, several Brewer's Blackbirds feeding 
with the gulls off of Van Works Rd, and 2 Blue-winged Teal at Long Point in 
KY.

Jeff has already posted more shots as well, but I have posted 12 more shots 
from today in gallery dedicated to this gull bonanza. I was much closer 
today, and got some fairly nice shots of the Icelands, Thayer's, and Lesser 
Black-back, along with a Lapland Longspur. The photos are at: 
http://www.pbase.com/mctodd/gulls_of_reelfoot  , everything following the 
Lapland Longspur is a new photo from today.

I really hope some more people can get over to enjoy this very rare 
gathering of gulls present now!

Good Birding!!

Mike Todd
McKenzie, TN
Carroll Co.
birder1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
www.pbase.com/mctodd

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